James Madison was born upon March 16, 1751, in Port Conway, Virginia, to James Madison Sr. and Nelly Conway Madison. He had 11 siblings and was the eldest boy of the family.
Madison obtained his education from the College of New Jersey, which is currently referred to as Princeton University. He finished in 1771 and returned to Virginia to exercise law. In 1775, he became a delegate to the Virginia Convention and signed up with the Continental Army throughout the American Revolutionary War. Later, Madison functioned as a representative in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1776 to 1780.
Madison came to be a participant of the Continental Congress in 1780 and aided prepare the Virginia Plan in 1787, which proposed the Constitution's fundamental framework. He additionally contributed to the Federalist Papers, a collection of essays supporting the U.S. Constitution.
Madison married Dolley Payne Todd in 1794, and also she ended up being the First Lady of the United States when he was chosen President. Madison was recognized for his function in the War of 1812, which was dealt with in between the United States and also Great Britain. During his presidency, he signed several essential acts, including the Non-Intercourse Act and also the Tariff of 1816. Madison retired to his estate in Virginia after offering two terms as President.
Madison passed away on June 28, 1836, at Montpelier, his Virginia estate. He was just one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and played a substantial function in the composing of the Constitution. He was likewise credited with the authorship of the Bill of Rights, which outlines specific civil liberties and flexibilities. Madison is born in mind as a scholar, statesman, and also right-minded leader who committed his life to the betterment of his nation.
Our collection contains 65 quotes who is written / told by James, under the main topics: Government - Society.
"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government"
"Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere"
"I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment"
"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself"
"In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority"
"In no instance have... the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people"
"If we are to take for the criterion of truth the majority of suffrages, they ought to be gotten from those philosophic and patriotic citizens who cultivate their reason"
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy"
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary"
"I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property"
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations"
"Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors"
"What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?"
"What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?"
"What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary"
"We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties"
"War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits"
"The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad"
"Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages"
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives"
"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted"
"It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad"
"Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other"
"Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power"
"The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived"
"Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done"
"The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world"
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood"
"Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense"
"Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad"
"Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty"
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare"
"Each generation should be made to bear the burden of its own wars, instead of carrying them on, at the expense of other generations"
"Commercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive, and impolitic"
"By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt"
"As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed"
"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights"
"Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes"
"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together"
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms"
"America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts"
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition"
"All that seems indispensible in stating the account between the dead and the living, is to see that the debts against the latter do not exceed the advances made by the former"
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree"
"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people"
"A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country"
"A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States"
"A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person"
"A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both"
"A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them"
